


The Third Hour

by Monstacatz



Category: SPN, Supernatural
Genre: Background Destiel as usual, Blood, Crucifixion, Gabriel whump, How Do I Tag, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Mild Gore, Serious Injuries, The usual SPN stuff, Witches, characters get hurt, i still can't tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-04-07 10:11:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14078613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monstacatz/pseuds/Monstacatz
Summary: Sam's been having visions again, but this time they're of a tortured angel strung up on a cross for his sins, whatever they may be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Me again, back with another WIP! 
> 
> I know, I know, I need to stop posting things without the second chapter even written but I appreciate knowing if anyone likes them enough for me to bother continuing soo...here we go again!
> 
> I got the idea for this one in Church, hope you guys like it! 
> 
> Oh and the title comes from Mark 15:25 "It was the third hour when they crucified Him."

What had started as what Sam had hoped to call a simple nightmare was on the fast track to becoming a serious issue. 

At first, the disturbing scene only visited him once every few nights. 

Flashes of an old church abandoned to natures will, a rotting wooden crucifix barely clinging to the wall above a crumbling altar. Then a splash of red and gold, a body hung from the cross, head hanging low and wrists slit, blood dripping down, down, down like morbid rain watering the snaking vines below. 

The most disturbing part of all, to Sam at least, was that the unknown figure on the cross was an angel. Along with their wrists and feet nailed to the cross, large golden wings were forcibly spread and hammered into the wood too, in more than one spot. Feathers were missing and in clumps on the floor, the places they had been ripped from red and raw.

Sam wasn’t even sure that angel’s wings could become corporeal, and that was one of the first excuses he used on himself to try and pass it all off as a weird nightmare rather than telling Dean right off the bat and possibly getting him worked up about nothing. 

But then, the ‘dream’ started coming to him more frequently, until it was the first thing he remembered every morning and the last thing he thought about at night. 

Every night, the same thing over and over. And if that wasn’t frustrating enough, there was the fact that if by some chance it happened to be more than just a dream, there were never any more details added to it that would help in any way. The figure was unidentifiable as anything other than an angel and there were no clues as to where the mysterious decrepit church might be. 

But he held off from informing his brother still, knowing that it was likely Dean would instantly start worrying and bringing up other instances of visions and hallucinations Sam had had in the past. And Sam could not have his brother thinking he was mentally unstable again, not if this turned out to be something important.  
He also knew that the second he mentioned a tortured angel Dean would freak out and immediately tie it to Castiel. Not that Sam hadn’t worried that it might be their resident angel, of course, he had, but Dean- well he would take it to another level of panic when it may not even necessarily be him. 

Besides, Sam had a feeling that it wasn’t, a weird vibe that lingered from the dream that told him in some strange way that the being he was looking upon was familiar, but not in the same way Cas would be. He knew he wouldn’t be able to placate Dean with that kind of unprovable knowledge though, so he kept it to himself. 

That is until what could only now be described as visions started coming to him even during waking hours. One such instance was a morning in the bunkers kitchen when Cas and Dean were sitting at the table over empty mugs and Sam had offered to make the next batch of coffee. 

He had stood up and made it to the counter just fine, but no sooner than he had picked up the coffee pot to empty out the dregs had it slipped out of his usually capable hands and bounced to the floor, luckily only chipping the rim and not shattering. 

Sam himself had doubled over with the sudden onslaught of the vision, the feeling reminiscent of his first hangover when Dean had blared music so loud he felt like his head would explode to try and deter him from going over his limit the next time he drank. Winchester men knew when to say when that’s what he’d said (and then gone on to prove himself wrong many a time). 

The irrelevant memory fluttered away from him, pushed aside by the insistent images of death and torture worming their way into his mind. He cried out and slid to the floor, head in his hands, trying to massage his temples to get rid of the pain. 

Dean was by his side in a flash, Cas not far behind, but keeping a respectable distance until Dean’s assessment was finished and he was inevitably asked to take a look at Sam himself. 

‘Sam! Sammy, what’s going on? Can you hear me? Sam?!’ Dean pulled his hands down from his head and patted his cheek lightly as if trying to get him to come-to after fainting. But there was no way to stop the vision but to let it run its course. 

After a moment or two, Sam shook his head and blinked hazily at Dean. 

“Sam? What the hell was that?!’ 

‘I-I don’t know. It was like some kind of weird-‘ Dean interrupted him.

‘I swear to god Sammy if you say vision-‘ 

‘Vision.” Sam finished. ‘It was like some kind of weird vision. Until now I thought it was just some recurring nightmare, but I guess not...’ 

He trailed off at an incredulous look from his brother.

‘“Until now.” So you’re seriously telling me you’ve been having weird-ass dreams and keeping them a secret like that’s a safe thing to do with the lives we live? Are you freakin’ crazy?’ 

Sam sighed and shooed Dean off of him, getting to his feet. 

‘I know, okay? It was stupid, but I didn’t need you worrying about it. Besides, it doesn’t even make any sense to me yet.’

‘Well, would you care to share with the class? What’s this vision thing even about?’ Dean’s face twisted at the word, unpleasant memories surfacing from his younger brother’s last bout of them. 

Sam sighed and looked towards Cas, evading the question for as long as he could.

‘Cas, can an angel’s wings manifest physically?’ The angel looked surprised at the question and the sudden subject change but nodded.

‘Yes they can, but it can be very taxing and it puts them at greater risk to injury in this plane of existence, so it’s not something many angels would choose to do, why do you ask?’

Sam motioned them both back to their seats at the table, sinking down into his own as well. The prospect of fresh coffee was quickly forgotten.

‘Well because in my- my visions, there’s an angel.’ He paused and scrubbed a hand over his face. ‘And the angel is strung up on a crucifix. I don’t even know if he’s dead or alive, I just know it’s the same one every time and he’s nailed up there like Jesus with wings.’

Castiel looked about as horrified as he would let himself appear and Dean’s head immediately snapped sideways to look at him in worry. Sam shook his head. 

‘Is it Cas?’ Dean’s tone was harsh but Sam could detect the concern beneath it.

‘I don’t know Dean, this is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you about it at all! I can’t be sure that it’s even an angel we know.’

“What color were his wings?’ Cas asked simply, interrupting Dean from going off on a frustrated rant.

‘Oh, I never thought about that as a way of identifying him. They’re kind of golden-brownish, with a few white feathers near the tips…’ He let the sentence drop off suspiciously as the tension on Dean’s face melted into an expression of relief and he un-clenched his jaw.

‘Why so relieved, Dean?’ His brother jumped, startled, and scrambled to school his face into neutrality. But a flush had crept across his cheeks and with Cas now staring at him as well as Sam it just increased in intensity.

Sam pointed a finger at him accusingly. ‘You’ve seen Cas’ wings! The real deal, not just the shadows!’ Dean glared at him, but with no rebuttal in sight, Sam knew he was right.

‘Awwwww.’ He cooed as he ducked the fork flung his way by his sulking brother. ‘So that rules you out then, right?’ He directed at the angel, who nodded, nowhere near as embarrassed by Sam’s teasing as Dean.

‘Yes, my wings are black.’ Sam felt some of the tension ease from his shoulders. Yeah, he could definitely breathe a bit easier knowing it wasn’t Cas in any danger. 

‘Can you describe what color the angel’s wings were again?’ The angel continued. He was frowning a little in what Sam knew to be concentration. 

‘Oh yeah, uh sure. They were golden-brown and kind of sandy-ish for the most part and had a few white feathers towards the tips. Why, do you recognize them?’ 

Castiel nodded a little and looked up at the taller man. ‘I think so, but I’m not certain. The last time I saw them was only for a brief second in his TV Land trick before he sent me away, but I think you could be seeing Gabriel.’ 

Sam blinked in surprise and Dean’s face scrunched in confusion.

‘Gabriel? But he’s an archangel, how would he end up like that?’ Dean cut in. 

Sam nodded his agreement. ‘Yeah he’s not looking too good, and I haven’t been seeing any specialized warding that could keep an archangel trapped.’ 

Castiel shrugged. ‘Visions are tricky things Sam, they may not always show you the context you need, you know that.’

He nodded. ‘Yeah, I know. But that’s another weird thing; say it is Gabriel, right? Then why am I seeing visions of him being tortured? Do you think it’s him trying to teach me another lesson?’ 

Dean's fist clenched on the table and Sam quickly added on to his theory. 

‘-Or do you think he’s asking for my help?’

‘Does it matter? We don’t even know if this is a real vision.’ Dean stood from his chair and swung open the fridge to pull out a beer, quick to shoot down his own suggestion of Sam’s powers returning when it meant possibly helping the Trickster, of all creatures.

Castiel shook his head at Dean’s unhealthy habit, a frown creasing his forehead. ‘I don’t know Dean, I think it’s worth looking into. It may have been a few years since I’ve been close with my brother, but I still know him. He wouldn’t do this as a joke. And besides, you’ve both experienced his style, it’s much more humorous.’

Dean balked at that. ‘You call killing me repeatedly to make Sam suffer ‘humorous’? Wow Cas, tell us how you really feel!’ He huffed and took a long drag from his bottle before wiping his lips and crossing his arms over his chest.

Cas sighed and rolled his eyes. ‘You know that’s not what I was referring to, Dean.’

Sam shifted uncomfortably in his chair, a guilty look on his face. Dean turned his attention from the angel and glared at him questioningly instead.

‘What’s got you looking all shifty?’

‘Well, I just think that Gabriel had good intentions, even if he went about it the wrong way. He just wanted it all to be over, it was his family and he didn’t want to watch his brothers die any more than I wanted to watch you die,’ Dean was looking at him incredulously, eyes wide. ‘Just hear me out, Dean! You don’t even remember dying in Broward County! I’m the one who has to live with those memories, but I’ve accepted that Gabriel was only trying to help me. And it has helped. That’s why- that’s why I never looked for you when you were in Purgatory, not because I promised. I remembered what he’d tried to teach me and it worked, I was able to move on like you asked me to.’

Dean slammed his bottle down and pushed out his chair. ‘I don’t have to sit here and listen to this. The Trickster deserves to rot wherever the hell he is and I won’t let either of you try to convince me otherwise.’ With that, he stormed out of the room, presumably off to brood in his bedroom.

Castiel sighed in defeat and pushed back the urge to follow him. 

‘I’m sorry Cas, I know he’s your brother. If it’s any consolation, I want to help him too; and I will, once we figure out what’s going on.’

Cas smiled gratefully at the younger Winchester and nodded his head. ‘Thank you Sam.’ He paused in thought for a moment. ‘Do you think this is real?’

‘Yeah, yeah I do. I just have this feeling that it is, you know? We just need to figure out where he is, do some research.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam remembers something that may bring them a step closer to finding Gabriel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Short chapter just so I can update this for you guys! I promise I'm not abandoning it :)
> 
> Hope you like it and thank you to the lovely people encouraging me to complete this!

In the weeks after their talk both Sam and Cas spent every free moment between cases researching and compiling a corkboard full of possible locations for the church. It was really the only thing they had to go off of because although Sam’s visions hadn’t receded they also hadn’t given them any more information. 

Dean pissed off at any mention of the Trickster and at Cas’ lack of time for cheesy movie nights, refused to be any help in their efforts to rescue him, convinced it was a trap to lure Sam in.

‘Why would Gabriel even want that Dean? Why would he want me?’ Sam argued, slamming shut the book in front of him on the table after another mumbled reiteration from his brother that he was being an idiot.

‘Hell if I know! The freaks obsessed with you! He likes to watch you jump through all his little hoops like the Mystery Spot and TV Land. Why you’d even want to help him after all the crap he’s put you through beats me. You don’t owe him anything, Sam, in fact, I’d say if anything he owes you!’ 

‘Listen Dean I-’ He stopped mid-sentence as a look of dawning realization crept over his face. 

‘Owe him one, that’s right, I do.’ Sam muttered to himself as he rose from his chair to scan the shelves full of books lining the room.

‘Cas! Cas, c’mere; I think I have something.’ He called out to the angel, who had left the room soon after Dean had entered with that sour expression that usually meant he had something to say about Gabriel on his face.

Dean frowned at him in confusion and crossed the room to join his brother by the bookshelves. He raised his hand and waved it in front of Sam’s face, trying to get his attention.

Sam just waved his hand away and selected a book excitedly.

Cas strode into the room and peered over Dean’s shoulder at the book in Sam’s hands and frowned. 

‘Witches? Why would a witch want to torture an archangel? Surely they’d rather harvest his powers.’

Sam shook his head. ‘That’s what I thought too, but Dean reminded me. There was this case we worked a while back, nasty bunch of witches, you remember Dean?’

He half-nodded, uncertain. ‘All witches are nasty Sam, get to the point.’

‘Well while we were trying to take them all out, Dean took a hit to the head and got knocked out cold, and as they were dragging him off one of them hit me with some kind of immobilization spell so I couldn’t follow.’ Dean was nodding with actual recognition now, obviously remembering the details of the case. 

‘This coven was crazy powerful and I knew we were in over our heads so I started praying. First to you Cas, obviously, but you didn’t show. I assume they figured out a way to block it. Eventually, I decided to pray to Gabriel in a last-ditch effort to save our asses and he actually showed up. He smote the leader of the group and rest scattered pretty quickly after that, then he healed Dean and left without saying much else.’

Castiel nodded thoughtfully. ‘So you think the coven wants revenge on you and Gabriel because you brought him there and he killed her.’

‘Yeah, it’s the best I’ve got so far.’

Dean scoffed. ‘Yeah, but why would they be using Gabriel as bait to lure you there? It’s not like you even like the guy.’

Sam sighed and dropped the book onto the table. ‘No Dean, you don’t like the guy. I want to help him because he helped me, he helped us. That’s all. Let it go.’

Dean huffed angrily and Sam turned his attention back to Castiel. 

‘We should start narrowing down the list of churches we’ve been looking at to ones that have been linked with occult activity.’ He said, pointedly ignoring Dean’s unease. 

Castiel nodded and pulled up a chair. ‘I’ll go through the first half of the list, you can take the second. The sooner we find him, the better.’

With renewed purpose, Sam pulled up his laptop and hit the internet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyy hope all y'all are ready for some Gabriel angst.

Gabriel awoke and pried his bleary eyes open just in time to catch the flicker of black material as his captor rounded the corner and exited the room, no doubt purposefully avoiding his gaze.

He couldn’t remember much from the brief moments he’d been awake so far other than the fact that the beings holding him here had never let themselves be seen by him. Aside from being cryptic, their elusiveness also put him at the disadvantage of not knowing what he was up against. Although the fact that they were powerful enough to trap an archangel was a worrying enough detail.

He stared down at the floor, momentarily lost in thought while trying to recall how and when he’d gotten caught. It was only as he registered the pooled blood there that a shockwave of pain hit him, hard. 

Gasping for a breath he shouldn’t have had to take he attempted to curl in on himself but he only succeeded in disturbing the nails shot through his wrists and reopening the wounds around them, starting up a new trickle of blood from each one. He screamed then, a guttural sound that ripped from his throat with no thought from the angel. 

He hadn’t felt pain like this from a device other than an angel blade in, well, ever. He stilled himself as much as possible but now that he’d recognized the pain it was there to stay, and even as he looked down and saw his feet bolted to the wooden beam he was suspended upon, he knew that there should be a lot more pressure dragging down on his wrists. 

So why wasn’t there? It was as if he were being held up by something other than just his wrists and feet.

Gabriel closed his eyes and focused on ignoring the pain shooting down his arms and up his legs and the feeling of warm blood dripping down his body. He retreated inside his head and felt around for his grace, calmly at first and then more panicked as he found it wasn’t immediately reachable. In fact, it felt like there was a wall surrounding it, not allowing him to break through and fly the fuck out of there, or even just defend himself.

As the thought of flying crossed his mind Gabriel reached out his consciousness to the plane where he kept his wings, hoping to find some comfort in them only to find them gone. He stiffened and let out a mumbled whine, shaking his head. The only way his wings could be missing from the plane would be if he’d made them- no.

‘No, no, no, no, no, they can’t do that nobody can do that it’s not possible.’ But even as he said the words aloud he knew they weren’t true. He was screwed.   
He braced himself and lifted his head with a grimace on his face. His neck was stiff after having held the weight of his hanging head for so long. 

With one more pained roll of his neck, he was looking up just above where his right wrist was nailed to what he now recognized as a cross in horror. Gabriel had seen- and done- a lot of awful things during his time on earth but never, never had he seen any creature sink as low as to damage an angel’s wings, excluding a few minor breaks in a battle of course. 

Looking up at his own wings now he could hardly recognize them. The golden feathers had lost their luster under the layers of blood and grime that covered them and many were bent out of shape and crooked. From what he could see he had at least one bad fracture along the arch of his right wing and several raw and bloody patches where feathers had just been torn clean out, not to mention his flight feathers which had been clipped like a pet bird. A quick examination of the left showed much of the same, and to top it all off each wing had countless nails hammered right through them and deep into whatever backboard held them flared up behind him.

His one saving grace at that moment was that whatever magic had him bound there also seemed to be stopping the pain from his now-very-corporeal wings from reaching him.

He dropped his gaze back to the debris on the floor and bit back a sob. He wouldn’t give these bastards what they wanted, they wouldn’t break him. 

His eyes were roaming over a broken pew, tracing the designs of the bindweed that had grown up and around it when his subdued grace picked up on the presence of a living creature at the far doorway. 

‘Why are you doing this?’ He called out, injecting as much of his Norse god persona into his cracked voice as possible. ‘If you want something from me there is easier and less risky ways to ask it of me.’ 

A female voice rang out in laughter and a figure draped in all black complete with a face-obscuring veil stepped across the threshold of the ruins. A witch then Gabriel thought to himself, and one who liked to look the part at that. But a regular witch shouldn’t possess the power to bind an archangel. 

‘The only thing we want from you, Gabriel, is to watch you suffer for the pain you inflicted upon our family.’ The witch held up both her hands with the palms facing towards the ceiling and chanted a short phrase. 

Gabriel opened his mouth to offer up a witty response but by the time the words left his mouth they had turned to a blood-curdling scream. The spell that had been keeping his wings numbed had been suddenly lifted and between the crushing weight of them tugging him down against the bolts holding him up and all the broken bones he was bound to pass out. 

The last thing he saw before his vision blacked out completely was the witch snap her fingers in a mocking tribute to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are what fuel me to keep this thing going so if you like what you read let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked it please leave a comment letting me know if I should continue it, 'cause I may not have it written yet but I do actually know where I want to go with it for once.


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